Providers urge automatic COLA after rate-and-wage study finds $558 million funding gap for direct support professionals

Oregon lawmakers heard testimony March 27 on House Bill 2150 after the Department of Human Services’ Office of Developmental Disabilities Services (ODDS) summarized a statewide rate-and-wage study and existing rate models.

The study, completed for ODHS by a contractor, recommended updating ODDS rate models and reported an estimated $558,000,000 funding gap between current state reimbursements and the cost to deliver quality home- and community-based services. The study recommends agency rate models assume an average direct care worker wage of $23.20 per hour and estimated overall rate increases of roughly 30% from current funded rates.

The study and bill matter because ODDS’s current rate models use cost assumptions developed from data collected 2016–2019. Caitlin Shockley, policy manager for the Office of Developmental Disabilities Services, told the committee the rate models still assume a DSP wage of $18.38 per hour — “lower than what we know providers currently pay based on the results of that rate and wage study,” she said. Shockley summarized that the study recommends updating…